Master of the Monroe Community College Pool?

The MCC pool temperature is always a bit, let's say...refreshing. I seriously thought about not swimming today because of laziness and the anticipation of the cold water. With only one week of the pool being open for lap swimming, at least until summer hours are posted, if they ever will be (there are times the pool is closed except for little kids camps) I decided swimming today was a must.

There was only one other swimmer at the pool, one of those fast swimming girls from the MCC team. I knew she was fast because everyone on our women's team is fast, they won the National Championship again this year. I decided to do repeat 100's. One hundred without a buoy, 100 with the buoy. My splits were good and I felt like my form was too. I concentrated on changing my breathing, three strokes or four usually, and powering off the walls. I don't do flip turns, figuring there aren't many chances to do flip turns during lake swims, so why bother now? I tried to stretch out and float along the water and actually did 3 of my fastest 100's using that method.

The MCC woman was doing lots of different drills and swim strokes. At one point I looked over and was beating her down the pool! I was so proud when I finished the lap until I saw she was doing a drill and swimming using one arm. I had barely beat her. Near the end of my workout I decided to end with two fast 50yd freestyle sprints. My first one was 53, not great, not bad. My second one was 52. During the last hard 50 I saw the girl float by me. I was beat and ended my 1350 yards with an easy 50 using the buoy. I left the pool, sat on a bench covering my bulbous stomach with my towel and timed the MCC swimmer. She was doing 50yd repeats at a consistent 36-38 seconds with no more than a 10 second recovery. It looked like she was just floating on top of the water. The repeats weren't taxing her like my 52 second ones did me.

My emotions ran from jealousy, to admiration to thinking of asking her for tips. I may have been the Master of the pool due to my advanced age, but definitely wasn't the Master swimmer.